VOLUME 15
NIIGATA
Sado Island, Snow Country & Nishikigoi Koi
Mid-morning in a Tsubame workshop, the hammers are already steady. A craftsman holds a copper sheet against a stake anvil and works it from the rim inward, the dimples accumulating in tight overlapping rows, each strike a sharp clean note that the next strike answers. Two doors down, in Sanjo, a blade is being drawn across a whetstone in long even passes, water beading on the steel. The air smells of oil and beech shavings. A rolled-up apron hangs from a nail. A kettle, a knife, a titanium tumbler still warm from spinning sit on a wooden bench in different stages of finish, and outside the open shutter the road runs straight between low houses toward the rice plain. The book holds forty pages, and the prefecture they belong to is wider than any one workshop suggests: Hoshitoge terraces in first light, the salmon eaves of Murakami in winter, a tarai-bune turning in an Ogi cove, sugidama hung at a Nagaoka kura, snow piling on a Tokamachi gassho roof. Koshihikari ears, kanzuri ground in stoneware, hegi soba laid on a cedar board, Sado jade rough from an Itoigawa beach. Through all of it, the same patience: working a thing slowly until it sits right in the hand. Begin anywhere.
“Forty pages of Niigata, worked slowly by hand.”
- 40 original Niigata Prefecture illustrations
- Single-sided pages to prevent bleed-through
- 8.5 x 8.5 inch square format
- A mix of detailed and breathable compositions
- Brief editorial introduction to Niigata
- Anyone with an interest in Japan, its crafts, and its snow country landscapes
- Adults who use coloring for relaxation and quiet focus
- A considered gift for friends and family with a love of Japan
The Niigata coloring book is Volume 15 of Sora Mikami's Prefectures of Japan series, a 47-volume collection that explores Japan one prefecture at a time. It gathers 40 original black-line illustrations of Niigata. It draws on Sado Island, Snow Country, and Nishikigoi Koi, alongside the everyday scenes Niigata considers its own.
You will find Sado Island, Snow Country, and Nishikigoi Koi, together with the landmarks, food, and quiet corners that give Niigata its character. The compositions move between detailed, intricate pages and calmer, more breathable ones, so there is something for every mood.
Yes. The book mixes detailed illustrations with more open, breathable designs, so beginners and experienced colorists alike can settle in. The large 8.5 x 8.5 inch square pages give you plenty of room to work, and every page is printed single-sided.
Colored pencils, markers, and gel pens all work beautifully. Because every illustration is printed single-sided on white paper, you can use heavier media without bleed-through onto another design. Slip a sheet of card behind the page if you want to be sure.
It is Volume 15 of a planned 47, one book for every Japanese prefecture. The volumes can be coloured in any order, and together they sketch the whole country one place at a time. Niigata sits in the Chubu region of Japan.
